As you may have heard, Roll20 is in the midst of a complete rebuild of our D&D Character Sheet & Builder, to support both existing D&D 5e and upcoming D&D 2024 content.
The team is hard at work on the revamp of the D&D Character Sheet & Builder, so we thought we’d drop in again with an update on our plans & progress – this time with a focus on the new Character Builder!
Overview
Whether you’re a D&D pro or someone just starting out, everyone starts their adventure by building a character. We’ve learned a lot since our existing 5e Charactermancer launched nearly 6 years ago, and the game has continued to evolve even in that short period of time; so our number one goal for the new builder experience is to build with the future in mind. This means developing an experience that’s flexible enough to support new content, but streamlined enough for even the most novice users.
We’re seeing what’s available in unearthed arcana: fundamentals of character creation are being reconsidered , so want to be sure our builder can support these changes, and any others that may come down the line. This will manifest, in one way, with a more dynamic navigation – as you progress through the builder you may see new slides added as you make choices that unlock additional choices, for example you won’t see ‘Spells’ within your navigation unless you’ve selected a spellcasting class or ‘Feats’ unless you’ll have a feat choice to make.
Ease of Use
One of our main focuses for the new builder experience is on ease of use: we want new and experienced users alike to be able to create characters seamlessly and intuitively. We know everyone has their preferred method of what the ‘right’ order is for building a character, so we’ve made the experience flexible; feel free to jump around in whatever order you prefer, any choices you make will persist to other relevant slides regardless of the order you’ve completed them in.
We are also adding more targeted help text throughout the builder to better guide and inform a new player on the choices they are making. This will include callouts to the types of classes they may want to play based on typical game nomenclature (e.g. “Do you want to protect and assist your party members? Try out Cleric or Bard”). We are also ensuring we are making relevant suggestions to players, so they are able to quickly make characters based on guidance from the Player’s Handbook. This will look like highlighting primary & secondary stats, or suggestions on characteristics.
In addition, we are adding Filter & Search capabilities across many slides within the builder. Have a specific class you know you want to play? No problem! Only want to see backgrounds from a specific publisher? Have at it! Giving users with a lot of content the ability to quickly find what they are looking for, as well as helping users navigate through the different choices they have. This will also make it much easier to see which content certain choices are coming from if you have 3rd party materials you are using within your games.
A Better Way to Make Your Character
Given the circular nature of some choices throughout character creation, we are taking a new approach on how skill choices will be made within the builder. You’ll now have a dedicated screen where you can see all the different skill choices you have to make and where they are coming from. You’ll also clearly be able to see skills you’re granted based on previous choices, or skills you’ve already selected, to help ensure you aren’t making duplicate choices. This removes the need to flip back and forth between your class and background slides to make sure you are making the best choices for your character!
In addition, you will now be able to create a character at any level you’d like right out of the gate! No more need to create a level 1 character and immediately loop back into the level up character builder. With this change, you will now see your choices grouped by level to help ensure any level dependencies are being selected in the right order. We are also streamlining multi-classing within the builder. You’ll notice a much more intuitive experience, and be able to quickly see which features are for which class throughout the builder steps.
Update on the Character Sheet
The dev team is making amazing progress on bringing designs to life within the Roll20 Tabletop VTT & Roll20 Characters. Our focus since the last update has been on:
- Ability score overrides
- Death Saves
- Implementing filtering functionality across the different tabs
- And overall editing functionality across the sheet
Here’s a sneak peak of the sheet running in Roll20 Tabletop!
Please note this is still actively in development, so if something doesn’t look quite right, that’s why!
What’s Next?
The team is monitoring all the feedback we’ve received on our forums and other social media and working on incorporating requests into our roadmap. We love this feedback, so please keep it coming. As for when you can expect to get your hands on the sheet & builder? Our official release will be day & date with the D&D 2024 release in September! But keep your eyes peeled here for more updates and maybe even a few surprises. Until next time, happy gaming!